Further Adventures in Magyar Cuisine

Hello again!

Welcome back to Melinda's Further Adventures in Magyar Cuisine!

Spinoza
For several weeks I laid low and really didn't eat anything of much interest. I have gotten friendly with the guys on the corner who run a little deli that also sells gyros. Many gyro shops here advertise "torok" food (Turkish food) but this is just a little deli that happens to sell gyros. For 480FT, which is about $2, you can get a mean gyro. So, I've had those for a lunch a few times, and I did try a Jewish cafe called Spinoza which was touristy but good. I ate goulash with spaetzel and had apple strudel for dessert. The best part about it was the pianist. He played everything from Mozart to Beethoven to Liszt to Frere Jacques and As Time Goes By.

Here is their web site:

http://www.spinozahaz.hu/index.php?lang=en

Other than that I laid kind of low. I had a lot of job interviews and my stomach hurt, and then I caught a stomach bug which left my stomach completely out of commission for over a week, during which I subsisted on yogurt and toast. But boy, when I go back into the game I go back swinging, as my adventures in Esztergom will prove.

The Pig's Knuckle Part One
The first night I was in Esztergom I wanted to eat at a place recommended in Lonely Planet as being the best restaurant in Esztergom, but they were closed. So, I decided to try another place that was "highly recommended," called Csulok Csarda, or, the Pig's Knuckle.

The staff was super nice and so I asked the woman who waited on me what was the best traditional Hungarian item on the menu. She directed me to their house specials and said any of them were very traditional Hungarian fare and very good.

She was not wrong. I selected a stew which seemed to be a bean stew, from the description. How I wish I had taken a picture. Allow me to describe what was set down in front of me:
Beans covered in pig knuckles, topped with fried bacon and mushrooms, topped with a paprika cream sauce, garnished with dollops of sour cream, and a tomato and red paprika pepper that had been cut up to look like flowers.  Wow!

I have to say, the taste was delicious, but it was very filling. It was enough food for 4 people, but it was priced along the lines of an individual plate. I think the staff thought I didn't like it because I couldn't eat it all, but I made sure they understood I was simply full. I probably only ate 5 or 6 bites before I had to give up. Pork with cream sauce is filling!

I got intrigued with the restaurant because I noticed a big mix of locals and tourists there. There was a Croatian family with a small boy next to me, two German tourists came in and ordered goulash, some Hungarian young people came out of an apartment nearby and proceeded to sit down and order. I enjoyed watching everyone eat and trying to figure out what language people were speaking.

Sometime during the meal my waitress disappeared and a waiter took her place. He was quizzing everyone on where they were from, what they were doing there, etc. and he amazed me at his ability to easily transition from perfect English to perfect German and presumably perfect Hungarian.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, but later that night when my sweat started to smell like paprika and that paprika cream sauce started to rough up the insides of my stomach, I decided NO MORE PAPRIKA CREAM SAUCE. Little did I know what lay in store.

Lunch in the Garden
The next day was my first full day in Esztergom. After getting a new hotel room and walking to Slovakia and poking around the city, I made my way down the narrow streets to a little restaurant that had a pretty garden and worked up my courage to walk in.

Lunch in Esztergom

I admire people who come to the US as immigrants with nothing. I admire their bravery and courage. I can be somewhat introverted at times, actually, more than somewhat, and more than just "at times", and while I like an adventure, having everything be a constant adventure from morning til night can be quite draining. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to eat. I stood outside this place for a moment. It looked nice, but there was only one table occupied. I wondered if I would be able to communicate with them at all. I started to worry it wouldn't be good. But, I had no choice. I had been walking for hours and was hungry and had to eat something somewhere, so, I dived in.

A white haired man greeted me and motioned for me to sit anywhere so I chose a seat outside under a huge wisteria vine that had grown into a tree. It reminded me of the one at Granny Boyd's. Here's a shot of the trunk.

Wisteria

And one of the garden.

Garden where I Ate Lunch in Esztergom

I didn't think my stomach could take anything heavy, and NO PAPRIKA CREAM SAUCE, so I ordered wiener schnitzel, thinking it would be tasty but pretty bland. I've eaten enough of it in my life to know I can stomach it. When I ordered it, the man made a funny face and threw up his hands, as if to say, "How lame! Order something better." So I gestured to the menu and back at him as if to say, "Well, what should I order?" He pointed at something and it was actually cheaper than the schnitzel so I knew he wasn't oky doking me, so I gestured to go ahead and bring it on.

A few minutes later, this is what appeared. I know it looks like French bread, but it's actually a pork tenderloin roulade, stuffed with peas, mushrooms, cheese, and Hungarian sausage.

Pork Roulade in Esztergom

It was delicious! It was probably one of the BEST "Hungarian" meals I've had since I've been here. A word about that sausage though. It looks like pepperoni, but to me, it has no taste except for being a little bit bitter and metallic tasting. It's clearly full of paprika. I bought one the first week I arrived here, and I was sitting at my computer one day and I kept smelling something horrible. Or at least very strong. I finally realized it was that sausage. I relegated it to an upper cabinet over the stove that I never have to open, and as long as I keep it closed everything is fine, but if I open it and just a whiff escapes, my apartment smells like Hungarian sausage for hours.

I'm not going to say the sausage didn't repeat on me but otherwise the lunch was wonderful and the proprietor was very nice. I certainly appreciate a restaurant where they want to make their customers happy even if they can't understand what their customers are saying. He was good in the universal language of gestures, and I like to think I am too, so between the gestures and facial expressions we got on nicely. For a place I was scared to go into it was actually one of the more fun meals I've had since I've been here.

Cafe Fifi
After lunch I went to the hotel to claim my key since check-in was at 2 and it was past 2 already. I dumped off my stuff, returned some phone calls, and then went out and walked around town for another couple of hours, just slowly poking around, seeing what there was to see, buying some presents for Jimmy's and my nieces (I think I made some old lady rich!) and just messing around. I got really thirsty but wasn't ready for supper. I had wanted to eat a little bit later on. I had passed a little cafe several times and I decided that instead of going back to the cafe I'd had water and orange juice in the day before I would try out something new. So began my experience at Cafe Fifi.

Cafe Fifi

I sat outside, and a nice teenage girl waited on me. Before I go any further, a word about the menu. It seemed to me that the girl waiting on me was the daughter of the proprietor, and when she brought my water she asked me if didn't I want something to eat, so to be polite I took a menu. Here is what I saw:

"All people who eat tootsome (sic) food give dessert for gratis."
Here is a list of the "tootsome" food:
Kangaroo Steak; Shark Steak; Smokey Baked; Fried Frog Legs; Fruity Chicken; Mexican Catfish; Garlicky Delicacy; Fried Beef Stew; Cholesterol Bomb for Two; Infernal Chicken Wings; Fuzzy Pork in Potato Coat; Cicada Slice; Stuffed Pork Fifi Style with Trotters and Ham; Fried Carrot.

I'm not making fun, I just thought it was so funny. I got so tickled I had to write some postcards on the spot. I think the girl's mother was pushing her to push me to order some food, because she kept timidly approaching my table to ask me if I wanted anything. I was pretty tired and worn out and a little hungry, although I had wanted to eat supper later on. So, I thought, what the heck? The girl had suggested stuffed mushrooms, and I thought, "Hell, they're only 400FT, which is less than $2. It'll make her mom happy, her mom will get off her back, I'll get a tiny bit of refreshment for some more walking around, it'll all be good."

Well, that's what I thought. When she brought the mushrooms out, they had been deep fried in lard, and were stuffed with ham and bacon, and topped with a paprika cream sauce. It was a huge portion too. The girl went back inside the restaurant, and I slowly cut the giant mushrooms into bite sized pieces and was trying to decide how much I needed to eat to be polite, when a beautiful hound dog came running across the street to sit by my side.

She was gorgeous. She looked like a red bone coon hound, and she was so polite. She smiled up at me and sat by my side, but had clearly been taught not to beg. I looked around surreptitiously to make sure the proprietor and my waitress were not in sight, and I tossed down a hunk of lard-fried-bacon-and-ham-stuffed-mushroom for the dog. She gobbled it up in a flash. So I gave her another bite. I ate a couple of bites, and gave her the rest. And then I let her lick my fingers.

When it was all gone, she just sat sweetly by my side. My waitress came out and looked at the dog and then at me and shrugged, as if to say, "Sorry, I don't know why she's hanging around." I smiled I waved it by as if to say, "No big deal." She brought my check, I paid, I said good-bye to my hound dog friend who then took off from whence she came, and I headed on down the street.

The funny thing was that about an hour later, I was walking down the street and I saw the same dog with her owner. She was on a leash and he was taking her for a walk. She smiled at me and stopped to greet me and I reached out and said, "Szia," which can mean hello or goodbye, and the owner is just looking at me like, "What the hell." I wanted to say, "No see, I know her. Your dog and I just had supper together an hour ago." It was too funny.

But I still want to know what Smokey Baked and Cicada Slice are. I might have to go back, but I might want to make sure my dog friend is nearby.  :)

Csulok Csarda Round Two
Now it's time for me to talk about dinner in Esztergom. It seemed to me that the tourist season must be winding down because, while there were some tourists, there definitely were not hoards of people there, and a lot of restaurants were closed. I decided to go back to Csulok Csarda because I decided I wanted some goulash after seeing three sets of people come in and order it the night before.

Csulok Csarda

When I got there I found they were hosting a group of American bicyclists, all of whom were senior citizens and could put me to shame. I have walked all over the parts of Hungary I've visited and half the time I've done it with a giant backpack on my back, but I'm not sure I could bike it. The waiter gave me a look of recognition and a smile and so I settled in. He brought me a glass of white wine and I read my book while the sun was still out and sipped on my wine and water slowly.

The tables outside at this restaurant were big wooden benches with brown and white plaid table cloths. The salt and pepper was in little glass dishes with little wooden spoons attached to little wooden lids. It had a charming feel to it and it was definitely a friendly place.

When the waiter took my order he asked me if I wanted it now, or later. He asked me if I wanted to finish my wine first and I said yes. So I read and sipped slowly and as I got near the bottom of my glass he brought my kettle of goulash out. First, however, he brought out the hot pepper. Here it is. I want to find one of these little jars to take home.

Pista!

And here is my kettle of goulash.

Goulash in Esztergom

And I forgot to mention I ordered some mixed Hungarian pickles, so I had a plate of pickled cabbage and cucumbers to go with my meal. The goulash was excellent. It smelled so good, and was very well seasoned. You could taste a hint of something like cinnamon. To quote Jerry Seinfeld, "Cinnamon! It should be on tables in restaurants along with salt and pepper. Anytime someone says, 'Oooh, this is good, what's in this?' the answer invariably comes back, 'cinnamon.' Cinnamon again and again!"

I hated to leave this place because the waiter was so friendly and we were comparing notes on the Southern US and Hungary in terms of pork consumption, I was enjoying listening to the two English tourists next to me, and the night was breezy and balmy and pleasant. There was a large group next to me who ordered a leg of lamb.  Oh, I wish I had been with a large group. It was grilled with rosemary and looked so delicious and it came with roasted vegetables. So, I was just enjoying hanging out, and I decided maybe that would be a good place to have some Hungarian dessert. I've been in this country of great cafes and cakes and have yet to taste one of the cakes. I had strudel at Spinoza and a delicious panna cotta with nectarines and almond brittle at Ket Szerecsen, and that is where my dessert eating has stopped.

I asked my waiter to help me pick out something very traditional, and he suggested cheese dumplings with cream. Oh my goodness, Granddaddy would have loved them. They brought out a bowl of powdered sugar first, then the dessert. By this time the goulash was settling in and I was wondering why I had thought I could hold dessert. I ate very very slowly. I still only managed to eat about 1/4 of the entire plate, which again, was big enough for about 4 or 5 people. My waiter kept saying, "Don't you like it? Isn't it good?" I finally put my hands on my stomach and said, "It's good but I'm STUFFED!" and he laughed and took it away. Here is what cheese dumplings with cream look like. Pure T Fat is what it is, I'm sure.  :)

Cheese Dumplings with Cream

I said good night and my waiter asked me if I'd come back again and I said yes. He said, "When, come tomorrow." I told him no, maybe I'd be back in a month or two. I have to find somebody to go with me so I can order that leg of lamb. It didn't look too greasy nor was it covered in paprika cream sauce.